Same Small-Car Stew, Stirred and Reheated

WHETHER you’ve been bad or good, I can tell you what you’re not getting this Christmas: a new Focus from Ford’s European workshop.

The Focus that Americans are receiving definitely beats a fruitcake. But it is a warmed-over version of the Focus that’s been around since 2000, rather than Europe’s vastly fresher (and admittedly pricier) Focus that shares its mechanical recipe with the sophisticated Mazda 3 and Volvo S40.

For people who expected the new Focus to saddle up against the best compact cars — including the Mazda 3 and the Honda Civic — it’s hard to hide the disappointment. Especially because the original Focus proved that Detroit could design a fully competitive small car when it wasn’t busy chasing the latest S.U.V. hussy.

One last gripe, and then I’ll play with the toy I’ve got: for whatever reason, the kids at Mazda and Volvo seem to get all the good stuff at Ford, while the parent company takes the leftovers.

Also gone is the Focus hatchback model, always the coolest of the breed; and the optional 2.3-liter engine that was Focus’s remaining draw for enthusiast buyers. What’s left is a serviceable and frugal — if sleepy — sedan and coupe, intended to keep budget buyers coming and rental counters humming.

While the styling seems timid to a fault — check out those faux cooling vents glued to the front fenders, as bogus as a temporary tattoo — the car itself is improved. I drove a top-of-the-line Focus SES for a week, a sedan that started at $16,995 and rose to $20,200 with options including heated leather seats, antilock brakes and a six-disc audio system with Sirius Satellite Radio.

The compact Ford also included the new Sync system, developed by Ford and Microsoft, that’s standard on the SES model and a $395 option on other versions, including the lowest-priced ($14,695) Focus S coupe. The Bluetooth-based Sync allows hands-free operation of cellphones, iPods, other music players and U.S.B. storage drives, via voice commands or steering wheel buttons. For now, Sync is exclusive to Ford, Lincoln and Mercury models, and it’s easily the Focus’s most engaging new feature.

After a quick one-time set-up, the Focus wirelessly uploaded my phone’s address book. As I called out either names or phone numbers, the computer helpmate with a female voice — Ford calls her Samantha — placed the calls and played them through the audio system. The system proved savvy at recognizing even hard-to-pronounce names, and it is fluent in both North American Spanish and Canadian French.

Sync usefully managed my iPod, following commands to play specific songs, albums, artists, genres or playlists. The Focus, however, has only a fairly small L.E.D. display atop the dashboard, so it couldn’t display a list of an album’s songs; if you don’t know the titles to say aloud, you basically have to advance track by track until you find what you want. (Pricier Ford products with full navigation screens can display more information.)

The system also converts incoming text messages to fairly natural-sounding speech, even translating pop abbreviations like LOL. Drivers can choose among 15 preset text replies, or forward the message to another number. I experienced a few minor voice-recognition glitches, but nothing like the old days of five years ago, when you’d find yourself threatening the computer loudly enough to merit a restraining order.

All in all, Sync gives the likes of BMW something to mull over: A $15,000 Ford that integrates phones and audio devices better than a $90,000 7 Series sedan.

In performance and execution, the Focus is decidedly less cutting-edge. On the plus side, the Ford rides smoothly and its strengthened chassis makes it noticeably more quiet inside. The pleasing steering, always a strong point of the Focus, remains. Front seats are improved over the glute-numbing chairs of the outgoing model, with better contouring and firmer support. And the blue-lighted gauges are readable and handsome.

Yet even the pricey SES model’s stitched leather seats and metal-look trim couldn’t overcome the impression of cost-cutting: The glovebox door whangs open. A poorly finished trunk has an awkwardly high liftover and no useful handhold on its lid. The headliner feels as crushable as a styrofoam cooler, and it’s covered in the stingy fabric that engineers disparagingly call mouse fur. The headlamps put out a weak and diffuse beam in either low or high setting. The steering wheel tilts but does not telescope. And while side and curtain air bags are standard fare, there are no rear head restraints.

The 2-liter, 140-horsepower 4-cylinder engine gets the job done, but together with the cushy suspension and less-than-grippy tires, the car offers little of the pep or engaging handling of some others in its class. With a mere four-speed automatic (a five-speed manual is available), the engine spends more time in its rackety upper ranges. Wind it up and bend the Ford into a turn, and its message is clear: “Hey, whaddaya think I am, a Mustang? I’m basic transportation, so quit messing around.”

Yet if the Focus is a common grunt in a field of more highly decorated small cars, it can certainly stretch a ration of gas: A steady highway march returned a stellar 36 miles a gallon, topping the federal mileage rating. (The E.P.A. pegs fuel economy at 24 m.p.g. in town, and 33 on the highway, with the automatic.) Over a week, my Focus delivered an impressive 29 m.p.g. in combined city and highway travel.

Over all, it’s hard to see this Focus as more than a place holder, an economy car whose basic platform will be 12 years old — an eternity by current standards — by the time Ford brings a true all-new version here in 2011.

Yes, it’s obvious that the European-version Focus can’t be sold cheaply enough to be the mainstream version here. But it is less clear why Ford can’t sell modest numbers of the acclaimed Euro model as a sporty halo car to pump up the lineup — just as Honda offers an Si version of its Civic and Volkswagen creates a GTI from the Rabbit.

In an era of $3-a-gallon gas and fever-pitch concerns about carbon dioxide emissions, it’s clear that there’s a growing market for premium (and potentially more profitable) small cars. Ford will have nothing to offer beyond models from Volvo and Mazda.

But forget all that: this Focus is good enough for Ford, so it has to be good enough for Ford’s customers. Even setting aside sporty compacts, Toyota will roll out its 2009 Corolla next year, a formidable redesign of its own relentlessly mainstream economy car.

So while they wait for 2011 to arrive, Ford’s chief executive, Alan Mulally, and its chairman, William Clay Ford Jr., have time to ponder a question: Do they think Toyota will be satisfied with “good enough”?

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INSIDE TRACK: Fiddling while Dearborn burns.

A version of this article appears in print on , on page 101 of the New York edition with the headline: Same Small-Car Stew, Stirred and Reheated. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe